This bike was actually produced in Chicago. Schwinn's that were built in Chicago are said to be some of the toughest bikes out there (at the cost of being very heavy, however).
I am not going to be putting much money into this endeavor, as the resale value of the bike is not likely to be a whole lot.
I should also note that this bike is a beast. It weighs somewhere between 35 and 40 lbs. A majority of people these days are looking to shed as many pounds from their bike as possible, so they won't pay much money to buy the equivalent of 2-3 bikes worth of weight.
Because I will be attempting this on a budget, I have decided not to restore it to its original setup. As of now, I think I will be turning it into a single speed bike, which will also help shed a few pounds.
Today I did the bulk of the tear down. It was really dirty and greasy, so I decided to pull everything apart and clean it, and then re-assemble with the clean old parts, and a few new parts as needed.
Bike technology and construction has changed quite a bit in the past 40 years, so this was also a learning process.
My favorite part of the bike is the Ashtabula crank, which is a one piece crank. It is the heaviest crank/chainring I have ever felt, but it looks pretty cool and I am hoping the get the chrome on it nice and shiny. I plan on re-using it to keep some of the vintage feel of the bike.
The fork on the bike is pretty cool, too. It is a blade fork, so it is pretty thin and svelte looking.
So, as of now, I have all the above parts and others stripped off the bike, leaving me with this...
Even the kickstand on the thing is heavy duty. The kickstand is pretty ugly and unnecessary weight, but I did some research and found out I would need to buy a special tool to remove it. So the kickstand will stay.
I am excited to work on this bike and see what results. The frame is pretty dinged up, so I don't expect it to look like new, but it should still be fun to see what I can create.
I will try and post my progress as I go!
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